dennis yang dot com

My friends Korby and Nancy were on Cash Cab this week… Awesome. They actually called me for the answer to the “SKOL” question, but the editors completely removed that from the show… so, instead, Korby looks like he completely pulled the right answer out of thin air, when, in reality, the answer was courtesy of my super quick and accurate google-fu. Korby, glad to be of help.. if this appearance nets you a girlfriend, you can add that to my tally too then.

Anyway… congrats to Korby and Nancy (oh, and the smiley guy Marvin too) on their rocking performance at Cash Cab.. Is it too late for me to get on Double Dare?

With all of the hubbub about the so-called “mortgage crisis,” I guess someone wanted to write a story about people who weren’t screwed by their mortgages.. So, my friend, former boss, and now real estate broker Jessica forwarded my info to a reporter who was doing an article about people that did ok with their ARMs…

Dennis Yang, vice president for a corporate intelligence firm, has a similar story. “I didn’t need to pay for the security of a 30-year mortgage,” he says. “Why pay for knowing what your payment will be in 30 years when you know you’re not going to be there?” Yet, when he bought his Hayes Valley condo in 2004, this wasn’t the first advice he received. “I approached my boss for advice, and he told me I should always get a 30-year fixed no matter what.” Instead, Yang chose an ARM that would allow him to invest more money in stocks. “I didn’t want all of my savings to be in my home,” he explains. “This allowed me to be more balanced in my investments.”

Amassing the knowledge about house buying and mortgages is a whole lot of information to accumulate, and then once you’re done, you pretty much never need to know about that stuff anymore (until you buy another, I guess).. But yah, I feel like they make mortgages over-confusing, and they should just present them in clear terms, without ALL of the numbers.. Like, the way that I felt about the ARM, was that I pretty much didn’t see myself keeping my house for longer than 7 years, so I could deal with 2 years of variability.. That said, back when I bought, I had no idea that rents would come up so much in SF, so now, had I gotten the 30 year, renting my house out would be an interesting option — that said, I think renting a place with an ARM seems like a risky proposition.

[Thanks Ashley for forwarding me the article... Google news hadn't found it yet.]

So.. it’s a good week for Techdirt press, apparently. This article, The end of e-mail: discover new ways to stay in touch, writes:

Dennis Yang is one such person. He works at Techdirt (www.techdirt.com), a corporate news and analysis company. Yang rarely sees his co-workers, but stays in touch with them in real time via IM. He typically has around seven conversations going at any time. It lets him work anywhere, even his grandmother’s living room.

“IM affords the ability to have a real conversation, as opposed to the staccato-style conversations that e-mail threads seem to become,” he says. “Studies show that people on IM at work don’t waste too much time chatting with friends, and their productivity gain would outweigh any socialising.”

Mike writes me asking if I had done an interview with this guy, and.. I don’t recall any interview with this guy in recent history. Then again, I can barely remember what I did last week, so it’s quite possible that I did, and forgot…

The reference to working from my living room means that he read the Boston Globe piece.

That said, the quote does seem vaguely familiar.

And then Carlo figured out why.

The reporter “quoted” me.. from a blog post that I did on Techdirt… from 5 years ago…. Wow.

Thanks for the quote and all, but I would have been happy to give another, more recent quote. Just contact me..

Update: Apparently, this lil’ thing has gotten Carlo riled enough to write his own post..

Well.. not the print edition, but the WSJ did a piece this weekend about the 10th anniversary of the Blog. Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster listed Techdirt as one of his favorite blogs, so we got the mention.

Thanks Jim!

So, the WSJ contacted us to add some more color to the piece, wanting us to send them a video about various topics. Since Mike is on his honeymoon, I got tapped to do the video.. Woohoo. Here I am.. A little dorky, but damn, staring point-blank into a camera and talking is kind of new… Maybe I’ll do more.

This video didn’t make it into the print version of the story.. oh well. Getting a hedcut in the WSJ is one of my lifegoals, so maybe this is kinda like a baby step…

Woohoo. Tales from my nerdy past. This is my 1993 appearance on the local quiz show, Academic Challenge. I tried to upload this to YouTube, but they have a 10 minute limit, and the other day I decided to try google video, and it worked there..

I remember our strategy for the “Hodgepodge” category was to always pick “Math” because our rationale was that no matter what, we would be able to figure out the answer. But, honestly, that was actually the most stressful cuz I don’t really like math that much, and I’m a little too impatient to sit there and calculate things out… I’m much more of a “don’t think about it too much” trivia answerer..

Anyway… good stuff. Wow. the 90s.. Yay.

One of my favorite columnists, Penelope Trunk, wrote an article today about virtual offices.. and I’m in it! The real-world article has photos of me and my grandma, so I’ll be scanning those in soon…

Update

Here’s the pic of me and my grandma…

And.. here’s the other photo..

Woo! Bailey got posted on cuteoverload. She is overload for sure.

More pics of Bailey here..

So, for awhile now, I’ve been playing this game, Out Of The Park Baseball… It’s a baseball simulation (as opposed to fantasy) game. You get to manage everything from your team’s lineups to who gets called up from the minor leagues, to how much you charge for tickets — it’s pretty fun (albeit admittedly geeky). Masnick had been playing in one of the online leagues, and got me to join up..

I manage the Milwaukee Brewers in our league. I had a pretty decent season, going 93-69, winning the wildcard spot for the playoffs.

So anyway — today, the chronicle wrote up quite a great article about OOTP, where I was interviewed and featured in a photo.. Note the photo credit — Andy took that.. Now he’s an officially published photographer, I guess, eh?

In real life, I’ve started playing on yet another softball team — this time here in San Francisco.. We play tonight at 7:35pm at the Jackson fields in Portero Hill, so swing by and cheer us on… We’re 1-4 right now. Last week we lost 32-7 (ouch.) Yes, that’s a softball score, not a football score.

Man… first the Alameda Journal, and now.. the San Francisco Chronicle… It’s been like a parade of press lately for me..

Yes.. that’s the back of my head (it even says so in the caption).. Man, I never really realized how much of a mullet I had last week. I got a haircut since then, but I mean, honestly how many times do you really get a good look at the back of your own head like that.

You know how after a haircut is done, they give you the mirror so that you can look at the back of your head? I always feel so silly looking at the back of my own head. I mean, you can’t really get that good of a look back there anyway, yah? I mean, as long as the mullet isn’t starting to curl back up, I suppose its fine. Hmm.. maybe rat tails are on their way back in.. wouldn’t that be lovely..

Anyway, I digress.. I’m in the paper! Oh right.. I suppose I should actually link to the article about Techdirt and all.. Things at Techdirt are going really well so far.. It’s been greating working with all of the Mikes, and I’m trying to minimize the impact that working at home has on my personal hygiene.

I joined a softball team in Alameda.. we play every tuesday. it’s fun…

I was mentioned in today’s Alameda Journal.. So far, no scouts have called, but I’m waiting…

Yes, it mentions I got three hits.. which is nice.. What’s also nice is that they fail to mention that our team lost 20-11, and I didn’t exactly do a bangup job fielding third base (but — the sun was right in my eyes the whole game, i swear).. or that all my hits were singles…

But.. I did make it into the paper.. my mom must be so proud.

update ok, mcc says that singles are good. so i’m happy.